Chapter 10: What He Owed

I turned off the kitchen light and stepped into the pantry.

It was the size of a closet, with shelves of my grandmother's canning jars, and a door that didn't quite close.

I texted Cal with a thumb that wouldn't hold still.

"They're in the house. Rupert and Marcy. Come if you can."

Then I stood in the dark with the jars and listened.

The front door opened and shut.

Boots crossed the living room, two pairs, one heavy and one light.

"Turn on a lamp," Marcy said.

"Her car's in the drive," Rupert said.

"She's with the Rasmussens. She's always with them now."

I heard a lamp click on.

Then the creak of my grandmother's rocking chair, which only one person had sat in.

"It's smaller than I thought," Marcy said. "For all the fuss."

"Marcy, what are we doing here?"

"We're having a conversation, which is what you've been avoiding since Thursday."

"I told you I'd get you the money by Tuesday."

"You told me you'd get me the money," she said. "You didn't say how."

"I'll take it from the wedding account."

"There's not enough in the wedding account, and she's looking at it now."

"Then I'll sell the car."

"Rupert." Her voice was soft and almost kind. "A hundred and eighty thousand dollars is not a car."

I put my hand over my mouth.

"For the boy," she said. "For his school and his future. For everything his father would have done if he had lived."

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